Re: Niefelheim - Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf?
 

Er, sorry. I'm going senile. Have edited my post to a correct attribution.

I could see it going that way, and copper plate/rime hauberk/etc. might be a better choice than shroud in many circumstances. I'm a big believer in preserving strategic flexibility.

(Repeat: I had not realized how amazing blood thorns on skrattis were until Baalz's post made me check them out. Blood thorns totally free you from worrying about encumbrance, even with Quickness, and skrattir w/ Quickness don't really need an AoE weapon. That means you can make unusual choices for your slots. I do like the thought of Winged Boots on these fearsome skrattir, or Cloud-Trapeezing Niefel Jarls.)

-Max

Re: Niefelheim - Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf?
 

All credit for Baalz' organizing everything into a nice neat post (which he did very well, and which I commend) aside, most of what's suggested here is a retread of things that have already been suggested, often more than once. Not all of it, but a lot.

Just to give one example, here's a copy of a post I made in September 30 of last year, suggesting the skratti's usefulness, and other items (including synergy between Niefelheim and undead) Baalz has mentioned:

QUOTE*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.*ENDQUOTE

That's just one example. Here's another, written in October 16th of last year, that goes into more depth about skrattis, specifically in wolf form, and pairing them with undead and Gygjas:

QUOTE* 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.*ENDQUOTE
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Even the style of writing isn't all *that* different.

And that's just examples from things I've written. Using skinshifters over Niefel Jarls is even mentioned in the manual! Forged items for Niefelheim have been discussed, argued about, mulled over, and pounded into the ground since approximately an hour after the release of the Dom3 demo.

Blood Hunting for Niefelheim is obvious, and a standard feature for them. It's not a new tactic, it's just something they're intended to have the capacity for. Pushing malignant dominions is another "old hat" idea. Bloodthorns on giants are nice, but I suspect people have been doing that since atleast Dom2, and that it's only fallen out of favor since the Lifedrain nerf.

I'm not trying to grab credit for Baalz' work-and this *is* a nice, concise guide-but it's a little insulting to other people who originally came up with these ideas and aren't recieving any credit for them, and it's insulting to Baalz for people to say that it's some of his best work, since he really *has* come up with some fantastic, innovative guides. I've learned a heck of a lot from his guides in the past, and he's put in a lot of hard work, for the benefit of everyone, and I respect and appreciate that. There's just not a lot that's original here. It's either old ideas gathered together, or Baalz' standard tactics applied generically to yet another Nation.

I don't mind anyone using my ideas, but I like to recieve credit for them, and I'm sure I'm not alone in this. It's not so terribly difficult to do a little research and see if your "great new idea" has ever been thought of before. Atleast, if you're not sure about the originality of something, then put in a mention that you haven't found anything similar before. Especially when it's for a Nation that's been in the spotlight for as long, and as intensely, as Niefelheim. It saves on hard feelings and helps us all get along.

I still think it's useful as a guide. The ideas are presented well, some *are* original, as far as I can tell, and I think it'll help a lot of people play Niefelheim in the future, but there should be the understanding that a lot of what's here has been around for a while now.

And I'm sorry to say it, because I really would like to have more great new ideas for playing what remains one of my very favorite Nations in the game.

Re: Niefelheim - Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf?
 

As far as I'm concerned, blood thorns on skratti ARE a new idea, and that's the most valuable thing I got out of the Baalz' guide (plus the usefulness of the berserking axes to mostly counter awe and fear--and dual-wielding athames and axes was also new to me). I'd heard skratti suggested before as thugs, but Quickness is usually a turnoff for me because of critical hits from fatigue, so I discounted that suggestion whenever I heard it, but Baalz changed my mind. Yes, many of the tactics Niefelheim can use are not unique to Niefelheim, and I'm dubious about the effectiveness of some enthusiastic suggestions, but skrattir really do have some unique synergies and I appreciate Baalz pointing them out.

I have no idea if I just disagreed with you or not, HoneyBadger.

One thing I'll mention here that I haven't mentioned recently: if you take a province with thugs and don't have time to besiege it, blood-hunting is a great way to shut it down for a few turns. Since you get d6 unrest for every slave found, and a skratti with B2 has a 60% chance of generating 5.5 slaves on average, about 7 skrattir blood-hunting should spike unrest to 100 and prevent recruitment on the round you move away.

On the other hand, I have to say that I've been a little disappointed with the skratti thugs in tests. Even the suggested SC builds (with armor and such) are great at dishing out damage, but less durable than I expect thugs to be, probably because of the -def from berserk. I expect a SC to be able to take out an army reliably, and in my tests my skratti approximations sometimes lose to armies even when there are 3 or more of them. They fare significantly better when there are some Jotun Hirdmen mixed in with them, though, so for now I'm thinking of the skratti as basically arty mages: you need chaff to absorb the hits while the skratti dish out the damage. And the axe is pretty nice against other SCs (causes chest wounds, apparently no MR resist).

Against the skrattir, Skelly spam (or Raise Dead spam) does work out pretty well too, because berserk skratti pick up 5 fatigue per round (7 if quickened) and have low enough def that zombies can actually hit them sometimes. And of course paralyze is great if they're still at the base MR 14. The advantage to all the blood items is that you're only spending gold, not "real" gems, and of course national mages also only cost gold (which is why I love nations w/ good recruitable-anywhere mages).

Anyway, I love the fact that I'm actually worrying about skratti as a problem. I wish every nation scared me as much as Niefelheim does currently--I've always worried about the giants and their cold auras but now they have a reliable SC-killer too, and I think it's great.

-Max

Re: Niefelheim - Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf?
 

Well, the main thing that irked me was the statement about Baalz "introducing us to a whole other Niefelheim". It's just not very new, not very different, and not much that hasn't been said before.

Atleast not in anything other than very specific notions about forging specific items, etc. Anyone can make suggestions about using 1 forged item over another. It doesn't entail a whole new way of playing.

Re: Niefelheim - Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf?
 

Oh wow, you had the idea that Skratti were useful too?

/cookie

I'm sure Baalz spends all his free time going through your old posts to create new guides. You're seriously claiming the writing style is the same? Baalz's guide is a concise example of how to use Niefleheim without focusing overly on the Giants that are commonly the key component for the way many people use that nation. Each section describes what advantages the choices he makes gives you, and how to tie everything together in an efficient manner. Which is pretty darn useful for a GUIDE.

Your post appears to be more or less a random collection of terrible rituals that Gygias happen to have the paths for. He's not even talking about using them in the same manner. In all honesty I have a hard time finding any similarities other than you both love Skratti. Who doesn't?

In short, I'm sorry you didn't gain any new ideas from his post, but I'm not suprised. It's clear to me that you barely even read it. As a relatively new player I have yet to come across a guide of his that has not given me insight into some aspect of the game.

Re: Niefelheim - Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf?
 

fungalreason, I'll thank you not to make any more personal attacks.

I won't bother responding to the rest of your post, because it doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but in the future, you might try making a reasonable argument, rather than just blindly sputtering.

I think I did a better job of defending Baalz than you did, sad to say.

Re: Niefelheim - Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf?
 

Going back and reading both posts again, I really see very little similarity between what Baalz wrote and what you wrote, outside of using Skratti. The only undead he mentions are vampires and ghosts (actually, the only summons for that matter). And he doesn't say anything about using the priests or the scouts. Really, there's almost no similarity whatsoever. You mention boosting their province defense, which he doesn't really talk about at all.

You say you did a better job of defending him, but you were the only one attacking him. I don't understand why you took so much personal offense to what was, in my opinion, a very good guide. Most people see Niefelheim and think strong double bless, and use the giants. I even remember a post where someone mentioned it was a shame that they had skinshifters, because nobody ever uses them. And (which I think was the impetus for this guide) I recently read in another thread where someone mentioned if there was another way of playing Neifel, and another poster said ignoring a double-bless with giants isn't something that could be done and is playing against the nation's strengths.

So I really think your attack (which it was) was a bit out of line. If you do have a new way of playing them (like this guide presents) please create it. As it stands, you sound quite petty.

Re: Niefelheim - Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf?
 

I don't think Baalz honestly believes that there's been no one who's thought of using Skratti's and Skinshifters before. But there are people for whom these ideas are new, different and haven't been seen before. Just like all those different cookbooks out there, just because some of them share the same recipes doesn't automatically invalidate the others. Baalz wanted to make a Niefel guide.

And really how many different ways can you play niefel without mentioning "take e9,n4, kill people". Even though I don't agree with everything, I still have to give credit that I think some parts of the guide looks fun to play. (how many other guides actually proposes using flesheater axes and summoning ghosts?!)

That being said, I'd actually like to see a guide written by you Honeybadger since your posts here do look intriguing. I'm not too fond of Niefel so it's always nice to see some perspectives on how to play them.

Re: Niefelheim - Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf?
 

BTW on a totally unrelated topic, this is something that I have to say always irked me when people commented. Honeybadger, both you and Baalz mentions that Niefel's power fades as late game progresses. See, that is true when people assume they're balanced like that, but they really aren't! As I pointed out, if anything, Niefel has better endgame than /most/ nations. They have durable mages (not vulnerable to artillery) with access to death and astral. AND they have recruitable SC chassis with skratti as thug chassis (and not even cap only WTF?!). That's why nations like Hinnom and Niefel bothers me. They have a great early game AND a great late game. BOO!!!

Re: Niefelheim - Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf?
 

Most of the disparate ideas Baalz presents are quite familiar for a very long time. Like the most noticeable Skratti SCs and Dominion push. However the way he bound them together in his guide and added to them new perspective and the sheer balls it takes to make some of his suggestions (skip triple/dual bless, don't rely only on Niefel Jarls) - I find all this innovative and I think the credit for the innovation and the nice presentation does belong to Baalz.

That of course doesn't take anything from the ppl that came first with some tactics or ideas.
However all considered, it doesn't matter much IMO. Its not like we have patent lawyers for dominions guides and/or ideas. Posting guides is an altruistic act, the way I see it, not a reason for bickering about author rights.
I think politeness and fair conduct mandate that credit be given when possible or obvious but to expect that every one who posts a guide from now on sifts through old posts and try to find whether one of his ideas was mentioned before is way exaggerated.

Re: Niefelheim - Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf?
 

I don't think anyone seriously thinks HB has a leg to stand on criticising Baalz.

The blood forged weapons are what interested me.

Re: Niefelheim - Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf?
 

I agree with HB on the fact that this isn't revolutionary in the same way as, say, Baalz's guide to Marverni. This probably doesn't offer much new stuff for veterans of many Niefel-wars, but I doubt they'd need guides any way.

For those of use who don't play multiplayer or haven't played with/against Niefelheim in MP, this gives a very nice vision of what it can be like.

Re: Niefelheim - Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf?
 

I just don't understand. Its hard to say an idea has been stolen when the concept applied is amazingly simple. Nobody needs to read anybody else's work to understand that a Skratti thug is worth investigating. All you need to do is play Jotunheim or Utgard once. That's all it took for me. The same applies to a dominion push strategy. The instant you realize they can push cold scales past their dominion it becomes an important consideration for anyone.

I would say that this is the first time I've read up on Neifelheim at all and I'm not overwhelmed with many ideas that I haven't already had myself. There are all sorts of mini-strats one can apply. Pieces to a puzzle. The question isn't identifying them, its figuring out how many of them you can apply before you overextend yourself. Which ones are synergistic and could be kept and which ones you need to forego for the sake of the rest.

Re: Niefelheim - Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf?
 

You people are arguing on who is copying who? By writing these guides and by helping other people out, we all are urinating into the same big pool of piss. It is collective.

Re: Niefelheim - Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf?
 

Inspired by this guide, I've been playing around with Skratti thugs in Jotunheim. MA doesn't have the skinshifters and the regular troops are resource intensive and unimpressive. This means it's hard to expand with the lousy scales Neifelheim can use: sloth3 particularly.

I was trying to see what was the minimum Skratti needed to be able to clear indies with some efficiency. In EA, they did well with Quicken Self and a pair of ice swords. In MA, you don't have the starting water income and my trials with other weapons ended in early death.
Anyone have thoughts on how to get quickly get them up and taking at least the weaker indies? I'd rather not wait for Const 4 & blood income.

Once you're using Baalz's Skratti build, how do they handle archers? It seems the lack of a shield would leave them vulnerable. I've used them before with Frost Brand and whatever shield I could afford and that was brutal.

Re: Niefelheim - Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf?
 

You're gonna have a hard time fielding them effectively before const-4, really most of your options before that aren't much better than just using their default claws and as you say arrows/javelins are going to eat you alive if you're planning on attacking without support. Even at const-4 you've got a relatively fragile offense machine who's certainly not going to be soloing anything significant - the build I suggest at this point with no armor very much assumes no concentrated attack - Niefels are great for drawing fire and tanking it out, but you've still got some good well shielded hitpoint sinks in MA. For initial expansion you might try using a handful of hirdmen to draw the attacks while a quickened skratti does the damage from the flank...but that's going to be dicey. Once you've got some research leeway you're definitely going to want to tweak some of my default suggestions according to what you're expecting to face. Using shields trips up the very low gem usage target as you're looking at adding 50%-100% to the gems you need for each guy (not counting blood slaves), but obviously is the way to go anyway in some situations. One option to consider is that amulet which gives air shield, with a 20 protection and regen you're very resistant to occasional arrow hits. Nothing really beats a good shield though if you're expecting very heavy archer fire.

Re: Niefelheim - Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf?
 

I've played extensively with Utgard in this respect. I find that taking two Skratti casting Quicken and one size 2 astral mage casting body ethereal twice works very effectively. Unfortunately this is best with Utgard as they have cheep mages with reliable access to astral. You could try your luck with Vaetti hags as one in four are astral. You'd have better luck with the Gygjas though. Use a few militia set to body guard and placed up front to screen arrow fire.

As for gear, I wouldn't ignore two-handed items for the purpose of expansion. Even the thorn staff can be useful as it allows you to parry most attacks and raises your defense by 5. There isn't many appealing choices against missile fire aside from the body ethereal.

Re: Niefelheim - Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf?
 

Snarky comments from the peanut gallery aside (I'm not referring to you, Wraithlord), I think Baalz did a very good job of creating a guide. I said he did in my original post. His guides have always been excellent, concise, and well-written, and he deserves credit for that. I use his guides myself at times, and they have the power to generate new excitement about old worn-out Nations that I've played a dozen times and set aside. I appreciate all of that, and it adds to my sense of enjoyment of the game. My beef was that he presented those ideas as entirely new and unique ones that he'd dreamt up on his own. That's just patently not true, for a very large portion of what this particular guide entails. Anyone who thinks it's entirely original material is either in a strong state of denial, or hasn't been paying attention.

And there have been guides in the past where-atleast as far as I'm aware of-he *did* come up with the majority or all of the ideas on his own, quite brilliantly.

Just not in this case.

I can't honestly believe that Baalz thinks these ideas, in this particular guide, are new ideas, either, which is why it surprised me that he wrote the guide in the way that he did, and why I called him on it. If I thought he really had come up with them, independently, I probably would have just quietly wrote a few personal messages to the poor guy, correcting his mistake.

And this isn't about "sifting through old posts", and attributing or not attributing credit. It's about the attitude expressed in the guide, the reaction to it, and the reaction to any criticism of it.

If you're going to have the "sheer balls" to claim that you've reinvented the wheel, and somebody calls you on it, correctly, then have the "sheer balls" to own up to it. Otherwise, where did your "sheer balls" go?

For that matter, I for one had the "sheer balls" to make the same suggestions first, and then I had the "sheer balls" to call Baalz on it, when I guessed, reasonably, that it would piss a lot of people off.

Sure we don't have patent lawyers, and there aren't any royalties involved, and I really, truly, don't care if somebody borrows my ideas, uses them, changes them, whatever, but I believe there's a matter of integrity involved over maintaining honesty about who did what, and what happened when. I expect that this mess has probably harmed my own reputation more than it has Baalz-and I had a feeling it would when I first posted, I didn't go into this blindly-but I've made a point, which is on record, of atleast trying to give people credit for ideas that I've made use of, whenever I was aware of it. I, and everyone else that puts their free time and mental energies into this game, deserve atleast a bare minimum of respect for the inspiration that we individually and collectively generate. Baalz deserves it, Sombre deserves it, the guy who wrote about skinshifters in the manual deserves it, new people who make their very first contributive post here deserve it, on their very first day, and I deserve it too. It doesn't cost anything, except a little time and an understanding of the concept of humilty.

Re: Niefelheim - Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf?
 

As I am assuming I'm considered part of the "snarky peanut gallery", please show where in your original post in the thread you had any of the same ideas outside of "use skrattis". I really see this as some odd personal attack, and a largely baseless one at that.

And where was the concept of humility with you essentially saying "notice me, these are my ideas!"? If you have good ideas, put together your own guide. As many people in the thread have stated, there are many new ideas in his guide (or at least things people didn't know before, since you obviously think this is all common knowledge). What you posted previously had almost nothing to do with this guide. Yet you want to somehow claim credit for the ideas, and make thinly veiled insults against the person who wrote the guide.

And the main reason I'm even bothering to post this is because I think attitudes like yours in this thread and another poster in the guide for Marignon only serve to discourage people from putting in the time and effort to make good guides (or any guides whatsoever). And me, as a relatively new player, loves to have the selection of different ideas and strategies for playing nations that come from the guides. I'm sure many other people also appreciate the effort. I doubt if anyone would want to try to navigate searching approx. 3 years of posts every time they want to write a guide to make sure someone who made some tangentially related comment about the nation doesn't throw a fit and start complaining. And that (at least to me) seems to be what you're doing here.

Sincerely,

-The Peanut Gallery

Re: Niefelheim - Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf?
 

1: Correct

2: I made several clear examples, aside from presenting the original posts, in their entirety.

3: The reason is that you don't bother to even half-read the posts that you spend so very much time and energy criticising.

Atleast I bothered to read Baalz's post before replying to it.

Re: Niefelheim - Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf?
 

Well, it seems that anyone lacking 1k posts is someone from the "snarky peanut gallery". However, with the elitism that you are showing, it's really no wonder more people don't post. And as for your examples, I pointed out before that there was almost no similarity between what you posted and you think Baalz's guide is about because based on what you think he copied, you either didn't really read it or didn't understand what he wrote. I'll leave it up to you to say which is the case. And I did read your post, but just so you understand that I read your post, I've taken the time to go over it in more detail.

You mention using copper plate on Jarls. In the original guide, he mentions copper plate on Skratti (along with 4 other types of armor). Now, I can only assume (since he's talking about a totally different unit) you are taking offense to him using copper plate in a guide without giving due credit. A brief search for "copper plate" shows many posts predating yours recommending copper plate. Are you stealing from them?

The guide recommends earth, death, and astral on the pretender. No fire. Another miss.

Horror helmets never mentioned in the guide. Another miss. He does mention fear, but in combination with (rarely-used) ghosts and Skrattis, not equipped Jarls. Unless you want to take credit for the concept of using fear?

He does recommend taking luck-3. Also magic-1 (which you don't mention the amount of magic). However, your justification seems to stem from getting a very rare event (120 points for a rare event seems slightly pushing it) and the avoidance of barbarian raids. He mentions luck as being used for pushing negative dominion. I'll give you half-credit for recommending those scales though.

Here, you mention using misfortune and stationing Jarls in every province (two things that are against what the guide recommends). And you talk about PD. Outside of the intro, PD is not mentioned in the guide. Another miss (noticing a pattern)?

Priests never mentioned. Also mention of a heavy bless, which this guide is not advocating. Another miss.

Scouts not mentioned, supply items not mentioned, and Skratti suggested as spell support, as opposed to thugs/SC's. He does say that Gift of Health is good however, but it's clearly not a focus. Ring up another miss.

Outside of Gift of Health, healing not mentioned (and also you focus on Jarls, which the guide does not). Miss.



UD spam or darkness aren't mentioned (outside of using the pretender) and the Wyrm pretender option not mentioned. Miss. He does mention underwater expansion, but using Skratti and water-breathing items.

Underwater summons aren't mentioned, but I'll give you half-credit for him also mentioning water-breathing items (although you should now credit everyone who has mentioned water-breathing items too, in keeping with your humility policy).

None of this is mentioned. Two big misses.

Maybe this is what you were talking about? It could be, but you recommend using Skrattis totally differently from this guide. And you're still focusing on a bless for the nation (and shrouds to back it up).


None of this is mentioned in the guide. NONE OF IT. The summon he does mention you ignore.

Well, there were posters who mentioned using blood thorns on giants as a new idea. And blood hunting is a standard feature for ANY blood nation. Making a guide WITHOUT mentioning it would be unreasonable. And dominion push isn't a new idea, but I could see that as being a weaker portion of the guide, since there's really no method given for actively pushing your dominion as a part of the overall strategy.

So you see, you really had no basis for your attack. And playing the martyr really doesn't help your "case", whatever that case is trying to be. I know you will probably dismiss this as more <1000 post snarkiness, but I hope you actually do look and see how no logical person could really take what you wrote as having anything but the barest similarity to the guide. And I do hope that your attitude isn't prevalent on the boards, or I would assume that there will be fewer and fewer people reaching the hallowed 1000 post mark necessary for you to notice.

Re: Niefelheim - Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf?
 

Hold on, now. HoneyBadger may be many things, but he's definitely no snob or elitist. The "peanut gallery" charge has nothing to do with post count, which everyone knows is meaningless.

Now back to your regularly-scheduled flaming...

-Max

Re: Niefelheim - Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf?
 

I would rather we move away from flaming and back to discussing the actual contents of the guide, personally.

Re: Niefelheim - Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf?
 

alansmithee, please don't let honeybadger sour you on posting. your responses were accurate and well thought out.

quantity most certainly in this case does not equal quality.

I was always sympathetic to Honeybadger, because he has real enthusiasm. But he has clearly gone over the line here, both in his "critique" of Baalz's guide, and his snarky comments about peanut galleries and the like. sad.

Just peruse the forum, and it will fairly quickly become evident who knows their **** and who doesn't.

Re: Niefelheim - Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf?
 

What?! So I don't have to listen to you anymore because you have more posts than me! Time for anarchy!!!

Re: Niefelheim - Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf?
 

I'm with HoneyBadger. :cool: His point was that Baalz's ideas aren't new.

Not that someone else had written a similar guide. Not that HoneyBadger himself had mentioned these things before. His point was that experienced players already knew Niefelheim has more tricks than just the blue giants, and indeed many experienced players commented something along the lines of "I knew most of this, but I liked this one idea you had" or "I never used axes with the skratti before, that's nice".

HoneyBadger's example isn't meant to be identical, but similar.
He recommends using non-Niefel commanders and goes into detail about using Skratti as thugs, and he recommends similar scales (Luck 3 most notably), and worries about dominion death (which Baalz solved differently). Focus on the similarities. Alansmithee's post above is good, even though it focuses on the differences.


I think what irritates HB most is the fact that Baalz never mentions that these aren't all new ideas, and wrote a shocking introduction that made the reader expect something revolutionary.

"Let me introduce you to the other Niefelheim, the one geared to win the game rather than scare the crap out of everyone for only the first couple years. "
"Blasphemy, I know. Now I admit, Niefel giants make great indie stompers, but my goodness don’t you realize you’re paying retail!?!?."

It isn't revolutionary for players who have used most of these tricks before. For players who haven't, it might seem like it's all Baalz's idea.

HoneyBadger didn't say that Baalz copied, mind you. His point was to know what Baalz came up with and what he didn't, so that you respect him for the stuff he did come up with and not the stuff all veterans already know. Baalz is the guy who kills huge armies with his teleporting Marverni mages, not a guy who uses Skratti thugs.

Re: Niefelheim - Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf?
 

I agree with HB & Endo's sentiment that this guide really isn't giving most people anything new but there's not exactly a whole lot of depth to Niefel really. Bless your Jotun's, abuse skinshifters => win. If not win => use skratti's as thug chassis + death/astral/blood => win.

Re: Niefelheim - Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf?
 

Oh no, it sounds like you're trying to revoke Baalz's poetic license! C'mon, it's flavorful and good for you too. :p His next guide could look like this:

"Part 1 of the treatise on Niefelheim in which it is described in some detail the various strategies that may be employed in which to obtain an enhanced level of capabilities in the later stages, creating a favorable environment for elimination of other potential prospects for the position of Pankreator, as opposed to a strong early game which though can possibly result in the rapid acquisition of neighboring territory does not provide the synergies necessary for an extended campaign..."

That's not gonna make me want to jump up and start a new game with Nief, that's going to put me to sleep.

Re: Niefelheim - Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf?
 

Alansmithee, that was good stuff. I'd rather this didn't all turn sour, but HB deserved that.

'lept speaks the truth as usual.

Endo: I have to wonder if you even read what HB posted. He might try to weasel out of it, but he's pretty clearly saying that Baalz is plagiarising other peoples ideas and that he had already come up with them and written a guide about them and OH BY THE WAY LOOK AT MY GUIDE LOOK AT MY GUIDE.

Re: Niefelheim - Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf?
 

I didn't say that. It's not giving new stuff to veterans. I'm not a veteran, just a regular, and learned a lot reading this guide.

I've enjoyed Baalz's over-the-top writing before and hope to enjoy it in the future. However, flavorful can come off wrong. My comment on this guide (first reply in the first page) is an example of that. I meant to say that Niefelheim played according to this guide would be wicked to play against and wicked fun to play as, but it didn't come out that way.

HB said he had come up with SOME OF the ideas Baalz used.

If he'd just linked to his post instead of quoting the whole of it, the tone of his post wouldn't have seemed nearly bad as it did. Here are some chosen quotes from the other parts of that message:

"...most of what's suggested here is a retread of things that have already been suggested, often more than once. Not all of it, but a lot. Just to give one example, here's a copy of a post I made in September 30 of last year..."

"I'm not trying to grab credit for Baalz' work-and this *is* a nice, concise guide-but it's a little insulting to other people who originally came up with these ideas and aren't recieving any credit for them, and it's insulting to Baalz for people to say that it's some of his best work, since he really *has* come up with some fantastic, innovative guides. ... There's just not a lot that's original here. It's either old ideas gathered together, or Baalz' standard tactics applied generically to yet another Nation."

Here's the part where HB suggests that Baalz borrowed ideas, with a clause for the chance that Baalz came up with it independently.

"I don't mind anyone using my ideas, but I like to recieve credit for them, and I'm sure I'm not alone in this. It's not so terribly difficult to do a little research and see if your "great new idea" has ever been thought of before."

Even a single sentence about experienced players already being familiar with some of the stuff mentioned in the guide would have been enough to keep HoneyBadger from posting. It wouldn't have taken that much to keep what HB posted sounding less hostile. It probably got worse in further posts, but fire tends to spread and there's little to do about that.

Re: Niefelheim - Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf?
 

It'd be a shame if this thread got locked due to a completely inane flame war. FWIW I feel this is a completely pointless thing and nobody should feel the need to defend me nor continue this discussion in any way. Feel free to continue the discussion about giants if you have any questions or comments. If anyone just can't contain themselves, please move it to a new thread.

Re: Niefelheim - Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf?
 

Deleted at Baalz request.

Re: Niefelheim - Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf?
 

What a crazy thread.

Thanks for the guide Baalz. I'm looking forward to having a go with Nief sometime, and it'd be fun to do it differently than just E9N9 giants.

Re: Niefelheim - Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf?
 

WTF was all that about?

No matter, I like your very unorthodox guide, but isn't it more applicable to MA Jotunheim? As I recall it's basicly the same nation but without the big nasty giants, although I'm not sure if they have those shape shifters.

Re: Niefelheim - Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf?
 

They don't have the Skinshifters. Which is a shame. They'd make a great asset to Jotunheim, while they're kind of overshadowed in Neifelheim.

The Skratti stuff certainly applies. The rest not so much. The Skinshifters give you easy expansion, which Jotunheim lacks.

Re: Niefelheim - Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf?
 

come on endo, we all know that hardly any idea in any guide is really new, they game is old enough by now so everything has been done before. Having said that the advices in this thread are different that the usual first repons pplz get when asking advice for Niefel and it wouldn't be my first thought either. So the introduction was pretty accurate (with a lil over acting in it.)

As much as I like HB I do think he could have better just posted his guide seperately in another thread without any comments to Baalz, or just added his idea's in here (which he did) without any clear critism on Baalz.

I think it's clear there are many ways to play most dom 3 nations. For Niefel I personally think going bless might still be the best way really, but Baalz' idea's (yet I know they aren't all, maybe none, his original idea's) and Honey's idea's are valid options too. All strategies can be used, so let's all just get on with it.

I expect a new thread with a new Niefel strat to be posted soon to prove my point :D

Re: Niefelheim - Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf?
 

LOUD NOISES!

<3

There were too many guides written in a short period, so I have been digesting them all slowly, I think this is pretty awesome stuff, and I think it is pretty innovative, in that you see comments and suggestions and tactics all the time, but no one has ever melded all of that into a cohesive strategy that starts with "don't take a major bless with Niefelheim".

<3

Re: Niefelheim - Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf?
 

Oh! I should contribute something useful, too. I think it's a fun idea to wait on Illwinter until all 5 globals are already up. Then you cast with 500+ slaves, and it's sort of like playing Russian Roulette on Christmas, everyone's going to get a bit pissed off, but one person more than the rest!

Re: Niefelheim - Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf?
 

Also, I don't know why people keep trying to erode the correlation between post count, and post content. I mean, obviously people who say more things, have more things to say. And people who have more things to say, obviously have more good things to say, than people who don't say anything - as they obviously have nothing worthwhile to say at all!

There's an old adage that goes something like - "It's better to say everything that you can, than be silent and be thought a fool."

In closing I would just like to say, that I do believe that werewolves and human beings can coexist.

:re:

Re: Niefelheim - Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf?
 

This of course doesn't apply to me that, with what, 1200 posts now? Didn't ever say anything useful :D (sorry!)

Is the Illwinter global any good btw?

Re: Niefelheim - Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf?
 

I think I read a post or two of yours that I liked. ;) If that adage is correct, you certainly talk too much to be thought a fool, anyways! :happy:

Illwinter is basically the cold version of Second Sun, but with random giant (and wolf?) attacks on random lands. It's a GREAT way to piss people off, but it hits their income hard, and in the late game can shut down mage recruitment if their economy is strained already (plus cause a little desertion!), not to mention making -the entire world- hospitable for immediate annexation. ;)

Re: Niefelheim - Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf?
 

Wolf attacks are more common.

The Neifel giant attacks are very frustrating to the caster, since you can't help but think how devastating they'd be if they could just bless themselves. (Especially with the usual E9N? bless, but even with a minor N bless.)
I've only used it in SP and the AI usually has enough PD/troops in its backfield to win. It might actually be more effective in MP, since most people don't invest in high PD which can be wiped out by thug/mage raiders anyway.

The income drop is a bigger effect. Cold & unrest, IIRC.

Re: Niefelheim - Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf?
 

What happens if the giants win? The province goes empty-indy?

Re: Niefelheim - Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf?
 

Yep-yep.

Re: Niefelheim - Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf?
 

I thought the giants came without a commander and autorouted? Was that bug fixed, or did I misunderstand about its existence?

Even if the giants did bless themselves they'd just get ", +2 morale" like an indy priest. Shame.

-Max

Re: Niefelheim - Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf?
 

One of the Giants is a commander. I'm not sure if that's a bug fix or not, but it definitely works now.

You're probably right about the bless. I kept thinking thinking they were mine and should get my bless. I was Jotunheim, so it was mostly: "What I could do with just a few of those!"

Since they never actually won against the hordes wandering the AIs backfield, I was never sure whether the province would be empty, mine or have the Giants in it. I can't remember if they were listed as "Special Monsters"

Re: Niefelheim - Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf?
 

"Independents attacking XXXX"

Re: Niefelheim - Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf?
 

Now we need a version of spell called "Frogginess" which turns all lands into swamps and generates random bog beast attacks.

Re: Niefelheim - Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf?
 

Giant Skeletons, under cmb 1.3 & 1.4 are only 13 hp.
you average about 1 in 4, the rest being the usual 4 hp skels.

I think I'd rather have a profit spreading dominion.

Re: Niefelheim - Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf?
 

Are you sure you don't mean a prophet sharing dominion? Or perhaps you'd rather make a profit preaching?

Unless you are EA/LA Mictlan your prophet spreads dominion no matter what he is doing.