Originally Posted by Nikelaos (Post 648423)

just tried in SP

Agartha seems to pwn giant bless rush, magma children are ridiculously cheap and a few of them can fell the giants in no time.

pity agartha ain't amazing vs other nations

Originally Posted by Falkor (Post 648234)

From my little experience I know three ways of stopping an early E9N9 Nifel rush:

- Stealth - Niefelheim has no answer on early stealthy raiders.
- SC's - either awaken pretenders or recruitables of Fomoria, Hinom will work fine with just some basic items and early buffs.
- Heat 3 scale - this works wonders, but only until Nifelheim starts spaming Wolven Winter (Alt.4) and it's one of the research priorities for them.

I don't belive some of the proposed solutions would work:

- Death magic - great counter to Nifelheim, but later in the midgame (Drain Life, Ghost Grip). Skely spam can stop giants from advancing, but you need to kill or rout them before your mages collapse. Spaming Fear or Terror doesn't work on berserked units.
In early game death works if combined with nature (fatigue spells) or astral, but it's not an easy way either.

- Fire magic - I just can't imagine it working. Despite fire susceptibility on giants, early fire magic doesn't cause enough damage to even considering it worthwhile. Abysia with fire immune, heat aura spreading troops is the only exception.

- Lightning spells - AN damage that causes fatigue additionaly. Works good on paper. In practice many shots won't hit the target some killling your own chaff. Also, lightning spaming is fatigue intensive and after several turns it's over. Still, it could work with Caelum, but you need a lot of mages.

- Cursing and afflicting giants - won't stop the cold aura from killing all nearby not cold immune units.

- Fire bless - would work perfectly on cold immune sacreds. Caelum's Temple Guard with fire bless is a waste though. Other sacreds will die from cold before dealing enough damage. Still, Mictlan and Lanka can make a good use of their fire blessed sacreds if combined with other options these nations have.

- Assassination - could work with Lanka's or Arco's powerful seducers, but it's a risky bussines for very expensive commanders.

The fact is that some nations look pretty bad against Niefel rush (or any rush, actually). Intensive diplomatic efforts always help. :)

_

Originally Posted by Epaminondas (Post 651595)

I agree with a lot of your suggestions, except the Fire Blessed sacreds solution. A Niefel Giant with a N8 Bless will regenerate something like 10 hps per round. I just don't see how some of your suggested sacreds of Mictlan or Lanka can overcome this in 2-3 rounds (before they become fatigued out with cold aura).

Originally Posted by Epaminondas (Post 651590)

Hmmm, I will have to try the Magma Children route. I just tried 33 E9N8 Bless Niefel Giants v. 78 E9N6F9 Agartha Seal Guards. The results? Zero Niefel Giant casualties, all 78 Seal Guards dead within a few rounds. This is really farcical; no national unit can remotely challenge the Niefel Giants in head-to-head combat, because of the horrendous Cold Aura effect. The Seal Guards had may be 2 turns of swings each before they froze and were thus rendered ineffective...

I've tested the other big guns against Niefel Giants, and even the Hinnom giants didn't last very long and took very few Niefel Giants down.

Originally Posted by Epaminondas (Post 651595)

I agree with a lot of your suggestions, except the Fire Blessed sacreds solution. A Niefel Giant with a N8 Bless will regenerate something like 10 hps per round. I just don't see how some of your suggested sacreds of Mictlan or Lanka can overcome this in 2-3 rounds (before they become fatigued out with cold aura).

Originally Posted by Falkor (Post 651858)

We are talking about Nifel rush so key battle(s) will take place in warm provinces. The sacreds of both Lanka and Mictlan will deal good amount of damage against lower def, prot and weaker cold aura of the Giants.
Lanka will bring undead chaff to the battle. Mictlan, as Chris mentioned above, will have advantage in numbers.
Fire blees alone is not enough to stop Nifelheim but Lanka and Mictlan are far from defenseless.
_

Originally Posted by chrispedersen (Post 651891)

I'll give you two hints from my book of stop niefle rushes.

Blight.
Bow of botulf.

Originally Posted by JimMorrison (Post 651937)

But in the early game when you've not researched any heavy evocations? Your dominion hasn't spread much, as Abysia has little need for a "high" dominion? You have a low troop count because your troops are so resource intensive?

Likewise, Blight isn't going to stop a true first year rush, and unlikely many people are ready to make Bows of Botulf in the first year - besides both of those are reliant on Death magic access, which still leaves Tir, Kailasa, and Marverni out, among others.....