Recovering from raids

[Soyweiser]

Originally Posted by 13lackGu4rd

I will repeat, how is raiding a weakness when Skrattis are such strong anti thugs/SCs?

I think because Skrattis cannot be everywhere at once. You can either spread out a large raiding force that takes a few turns to be destroyed by a large group of Skrattis. Or have a few of them all over the place, who are easily picked off. Skrattis are nice, but still killable with elite troops.

[13lackGu4rd]

Originally Posted by Soyweiser

I think because Skrattis cannot be everywhere at once. You can either spread out a large raiding force that takes a few turns to be destroyed by a large group of Skrattis. Or have a few of them all over the place, who are easily picked off. Skrattis are nice, but still killable with elite troops.

not true. Skrattis are the best mage Niefelheim has access to, so he should have plenty of them lying around in his kingdom, researching, blood hunting, casting rituals, thugging, etc. so many uses for them and you can never really have enough... so if you get raided all you need is a single equipped skratti for each raider, not to mention that the Skrattis that are blood hunting outside of castles should be scripted with Frozen Heartx5 from the front lines or something like that, can also use the blood spells such as banish demon(if fighting demonic thugs/SCs), life for a life, claws of koklydos, etc. so basically every province that has a Skratti in it should not fall to a single thug, and those without should get a Skratti moving towards them(Wolf form, not Werewolf gives map move 3, so easy to mobilize).

[thejeff]

Well, Skratti can't teleport, aren't stealthy (without ditching gear in wolf form), so you have to send them out to wait for raiders, you can't respond effectively.

Since they have to be out waiting they can be Mind Hunted. Your PD is useless, so if you've spread Skratti out, they can be hit by teams designed to kill them.

Actually Neifel Jarls are probably better for anti-raider duty, since they can cloud trapeze.

[Quitti]

And niefel desperately needs any research they can get, so they will not spread skrattis around "just in case". Few key provinces could easily be defended, especially ones being bloodhunted or so, but with the size niefel tends to grow to, it's not easy or usually even possible to get a geared skratti werewolf into every prov.

And the werewolf form has mm3 too, at least in CBM.

[13lackGu4rd]

Originally Posted by thejeff

Well, Skratti can't teleport, aren't stealthy (without ditching gear in wolf form), so you have to send them out to wait for raiders, you can't respond effectively.

Since they have to be out waiting they can be Mind Hunted. Your PD is useless, so if you've spread Skratti out, they can be hit by teams designed to kill them.

Actually Neifel Jarls are probably better for anti-raider duty, since they can cloud trapeze.

Originally Posted by Quitti

And niefel desperately needs any research they can get, so they will not spread skrattis around "just in case". Few key provinces could easily be defended, especially ones being bloodhunted or so, but with the size niefel tends to grow to, it's not easy or usually even possible to get a geared skratti werewolf into every prov.

And the werewolf form has mm3 too, at least in CBM.

both of you point out at a mobility issue, which in my opinion can be solved by smart fort positioning which gives you a much faster reaction time. also even though Skrattis in Werewolf/Wolf form lose item slots you can use scouts to carry the items for them, and you should have plenty of scouts around if just to carry blood slaves from your labless blood hunting provinces into your labs... and having a handful of say Axes of Hate+Dusk Daggers in your lab preemptively in preparation for such raiding squads isn't such a bad idea, and if not raided will be used offensively later on so it isn't really wasted.

yes mind hunts can be a *****, but they are for many nations, nothing unique to Niefelheim... but Niefelheim has the Gygjas as well, and while not as useful as Skrattis they do have 52.5% to have S1 on them, less for S2 and even S3 very very rarely, so if you know there is an Astral power in the neighborhood, you might wanna get a few more Gygjas than usual.

so yes, obviously a very strong raiding blitz would be problematic to deal with, but that would go for anybody not just Niefelheim. I'm trying to say that Niefelheim isn't that more susceptible to raiders than other nations, and PD never really stops good thugs anyway...

[chrispedersen]

Expanding on the last comment:
Certainly skrattis can be equipped for anti-raiding duty. And they are generrally pretty good at it. But the fact remains that niefle's PD is porous, and subject to easy raiding.

Niefle makes the same numbers of commanders as other nations - which can be split among raid(antiraid), research, gem hunting, and forging, etc.

Equipping thugs (forging equipment) and then sending them out
on anti raid - are thugs that aren't being used to invade ME. And mages that aren't being used to research, or blood hunt.
And I'd much raither fight niefle on 'his' territory - than on mine.

IE., niefles armies are absolutely brutal - whether jarls, or popsicles. Dealing with one or two skrattis is a lot easier than dealing with 10 popsicles.. or 3-4 jarls.

[Baalz]

As I point out in my Niefel guide, lining up crystal coins is a huge win for Niefel, so much so it's worth considering at pretender creation. With crystal coins + caps you've got plenty of S3 Gygja which rather negates most of the concerns listed here. Mindhunts are suddenly not an option against you, and it's not all that high a bar to line up a dozen teleporting anti-raiders.

[thejeff]

Yeah, I wouldn't even consider Mind-Hunting Neifel, unless I saw that he'd spread out unsupported Skratti into most of his provinces. Especially if they were in Wolf form for thug duty.

And Skratti moving out of forts are good for counter attacking to provinces back, but not for blocking the raids in the first place or for intercepting the raiders. Gygja and Neifel Jarls are the tools for intercepting.

I agree that PD never stops good thugs anyway, but giant PD doesn't stop lousy thugs, or even cheaper things. It lowers the opportunity cost of raiding, because you can do it so cheaply. Especially since PD is often left low because it's not worth investing in.

[chrispedersen]

Originally Posted by Baalz

As I point out in my Niefel guide, lining up crystal coins is a huge win for Niefel, so much so it's worth considering at pretender creation. With crystal coins + caps you've got plenty of S3 Gygja which rather negates most of the concerns listed here. Mindhunts are suddenly not an option against you, and it's not all that high a bar to line up a dozen teleporting anti-raiders.

Well, I more or less agree on the principle but I think caps alone are sufficient. An 80% chance of getting feebleminded/killed with an s2 gygja is more than enough to persuade me to try soemthing else.

[Maerlande]

Isn't the best solution to raiding counter raiding? Preferebly cheaper than the raider is doing it?