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

he might be lost in time or space, or dead :)

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

ooo......

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

A prophet that moves around spreads that dominion faster. For example, if your prophet is on a province with no candles, the province automatically gains one of your candles regardless of the temple-check outcome. See for yourself.

In regards to giant skeletons, a 225% improvement to HP seems like a worthy consideration just on its own.

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

I created a dom 1 god, sent the prophet to a zero-candle province, and the next turn it still had zero candles. The next turn too.

I think you're using a higher-dominion prophet and you're just seeing the results of the automatic prophet temple check. Or maybe your god is in the province too? The god automatically creates one white candle per month in the province he is in.

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

If the manual is not wrong, prophets generate temple checks, as does the capital province and (not surprisingly) temples. Temple checks are based on current max dominion, so a dominion of 1 means a prophet only has a 10% chance of generating a candle.

The Pretender unit itself, does generate an automatic candle every turn, plus two temple checks.

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

According to a developer post I cannot find, temple checks from the god and prophet are based on current max dominion, which equals (starting max dominion) + (the number of temples you have / 5).

Temples checks from temples and blood sacrificing are based on starting max dominion (your god's initial dominion score), not current max dominion. This has also been confirmed through testing.

I'm not sure about other temple checks, like Victory Points, Juggernauts and the Ark, but I suspect they are also based on starting max dominion. Victory Points are only half a temple check.

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

I suppose I got prophet confused with pretender in this context. It Happens.

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

Yes. It's also in the bug shortlist. Of course, it's always possible that JK fixed it at some point without remembering to put it on the progress page or the bug shortlist (sometimes that happens), but AFAIK it's still a bug.

-Max

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

Yes, but you only get 0-3 or so of the giant skeletons each turn.

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

When expanding, are there any special tricks to keep the commander from getting killed? with so few troops, sometimes some of the indy cavalry or whatnot gets by, and once the commander's down...

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

That's a great question, not only for Niefelheim.

I would very much like to use some of the long lasting battle field enchantments.
But if I don't use troops, only summons or SCs half of the enemy army ignores them and attacks my mages. If I bring in troops it's somewhat pointless because of friendly fire.

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

well, I will sometimes give my commanders bloodslaves. Takes hits for arrows and can provide an emergency screening force.

bring the slaves on a scout, distribute them when you face cav.

~ ~ ~ ~

secondly, if you attack a province with a scout, you can see the cav setup, and alter your setup accordingly.
~ ~ ~ ~

Lastly, build a small screen of indy troops in addition to your giants. Don't send them in to combat.. just guard commander.

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

Set your troops all the way to the back and script them to hold then attack. This will give the enemy a chance to get nice and strung out as their cavalry races ahead so you can deal with their forces piecemeal. It also makes their archers fire from their maximum range (and minimum precision)

Set your commander behind the troops (obviously), but offset both troops and commander to one side. The enemy indie troops will always start dead center, so this gives them a harder time flanking you. E = enemy, T = your troops, C = your commander


...........EEE
...........EEE
...........EEE



.....TT
.....TT

C


'course it's not perfect, but those two tricks will help a good deal.

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

Baalz, thank you very much. Now AlpineJoe used this against me.
:doh:
I couldnt use my thug oracles (Agartha) against those thug werewolves because of the chest wound of those dreaded axes, but they showed late enough so my magic-3 earth readers researched petrify and suddenly werewolves were like puppies. Ok ive been lucky to find astral mages and gear my petrifier oracles (earth4) with eye of the void and earthboots. But if i had astral on my pretender i wouldnt need any luck.

I think early giants would have been scarier (i hurried to const to gear my pretender risen oracle and umbrals to stop hypotetical giants) but all in all before I could reach petrify i couldnt stop them apart from my pretender geared with const 4 items.

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

I'm playing Dom 3 with the latest patch, so I don't know if something changed between when Baalz posted his guide and the latest patch, but using his Pretender suggestion, I'm coming up with -25 points.

Awake Master Lich: E4 S4 D5
Dominion 9, Order 3, Sloth 3, Cold 3, Death 3, Luck 3, Magic 1

Anyone know where the discrepancy happened?

Taking Dominion down to 8 leaves me with 17 points.

Is it worth taking Dominion down to 7 and picking up F2 for site searching? I seem to remember (it's been over a year since I've played Dom 3) several fire sites have multiple types of gems.

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

@ Andonsage - Are you using CBM (Conceptual Balance Mod) or not? Most of Baalz's recent guides have been based on it, as it is used in most MP games now.

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

No, I haven't heard of it. I'll look for it and check it out. While I pretty much just play single-player, I suppose I should use it just in case I want to play multi-player.

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

@ AndonSage - If you don't want the complete CBM package, I'm pretty certain you can just download and install seperate parts of the mod (I know this was an option with earlier versions of CBM, but haven't checked the most recent one). In this case you would just need the 'CBM Pretenders' part of the mod in order to have the build Baalz suggested, while keeping the rest of the game vanilla which you are most used to from SP games.

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

Ha just saw this. Yeah I tried out Baalz werewolf gear and it worked pretty well initially. That first battle i must have killed 3-4k gold worth of troops and your pretender with 4 skratti. Alas I had no astral income (like 0) that game at all so couldn't afford the amulets of antimagic i needed. It was actually blindness that did me in more than petrify, as werewolves equipped with athames have no AOE attack. Then you turned the tide and atlantis did me in :(

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

Yeah, I downloaded the CB mod to look at the readme, and noticed the Master Lich was reduced from 100 to 75 points, which is where the difference is. The current CB 1.5 mod does have a full version and a split version. I would be more hesitant to use the split version, since I figure the entire mod was developed to work together.

Is there any reason not to install the entire CB mod even if I only play single-player? It's been so long since I've played, that I don't remember a lot anyway, hehe :)

Also, how do I install the mod? I've never installed one before. Just unzip to overwrite the current files?

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

I've read several Niefelheim guides, and one of them has the following for countering darkness:

Anyway, just something I thought might help.

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

To install a mod, look at the appropriate section in the FAQ (link).

The CBM Mod changes numerous things, ranging from costs/abilities of recruitables to level/cost/power of spells, the effects of scales, and the costs/abilities of pretenders. It also includes the Worthy Heroes mod (a mod the adds new and better heroes to nations that don't have any/enough).

While they all do work together to diversify strategies, the option to install the parts seperately is for the convenience of those who like some, but not all, of the mod. For example, if you like the pretender and spell changes but you don't like the changes to recruits (which can be odd at times), the capability is there without too much work or modding knowledge.

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

Thank you :) I was looking for instructions on installing mods in the Mod forum. Silly me :)

Thanks for the explanation on CB Mod. I'll just install the whole thing and see how I like it.

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

Blindness is different to Darkness.
Blindness = cheap fire spell that targets one unit and can be resisted
Darkness = expensive spell that targets everyone and can't be resistet, but undead can see in the dark.

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

Whoops, you're right. Not sure why I confused the two.

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

Baalz,

I've been reading and re-reading your guide to make sure I understand it, but I still have a few questions.

The manual says Barkskin (and those two spells are just mass Barkskin) raises Protection to 10, or adds 1 Protection if the unit is already at 10 or higher. Since the Jotun Skinshifter's Protection is 9, how are you getting it to 15?

Do you mean 2 Blood - 1 other random guys? Otherwise I don't understand that.

I was wondering what you suggest for a prophet for this strategy? I would normally make a prophet out of a Niefel Jarl.

I'm also wondering why you suggest to research Construction 4 first. It seems to me that you need to take territories, so you can site search them, and the buffs you recommend for the Gygjas begin at Alteration 3 (Protection and Body Ethereal). Luck is Alteration 4. So why not go for Alt 4 first, since if you go with Constr 4 first, you probably won't have many sites searched by that time anyway? You need a gem income to take advantage of item construction, yes?

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

"3 blood -1 guys" means 3 guys with blood 1.

As for Construction 4, his plan starts with the pretender site-searching so you'll have some income. And the main items for the Skratti at first are Blood (Flesh Eaters), not gem-based.


Edit: Barkskin gives you a natural protection of 10. With their armor of 7, that should give them 15 total.

10+7-(10*7/40)=15.25

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

Thanks Jeff, right on all counts.

As to your prophet, it's not really important to the overall strategy so make it whoever seems like the most fun, you could do worse than a jarl.

As to the research order, obviously it's a bit flexible but my thinking was: bloodhunt with no sanguine rods so you've got a few blood slaves ready by the time you hit constr-4. In the two turns it takes to forge a few items and move your skratti to wherever the fighting is you can pick up quicken self which is really all your skratti need at this point. In a very general sense if I need constr and alt for a build, I like to go with construction first because I can hit the research for alteration after I've passed out items and my guys are on the way, while they need to hang by the labs to have magic items passed out if you do that in the reverse order.

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

Ah! That makes sense now, thanks :)

Yeah, I guess I just wanted the Gygjas I was using as commanders to be able to do something at the start, but I guess it doesn't matter. The skinshifters are doing all the work.

Ah hah! Now I understand :)

I've started a game with the Faerun 466 Adventure Map, and independents at 7. I can take the regular indies with 10 skinshifters, but the provinces with a crown icon chew them up and spit 'em back out. I figure I'll need a few souped-up Skratti along with them for those provinces.

A funny thing happened in that game... my first two Gygjas were D1N1B4! What are the chances of that?!? Pretty small, I know, hehe. So I had the two of them doing the blood hunting instead of Skrattis, at the start :) BTW, for blood hunting I just find a large pop province and set the tax rate to 0% to control the unrest. Is that the normal way to do things for blood hunting?

One of the problems I see with using S1 or N1 indie commanders is the cold. You should probably mention they'll need a CR ring or something similar. Since you also usually need a Lab to recruit them, at 500 gold, that's another two Gygjas worth of gold, so at this point I've been sticking with Gygjas.

So, what do you do when you don't find any Astral Pearls income? Just use alchemy?

Thanks for all the help guys!

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

You´re on the right track, but there´s no benefit to hunting from population after the first 5000. So basically the more the population exeeds 5000 the more money you lose. Use provinces with 5000-7000 pop.

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

Also, with Baalz's suggested build, your population will be going down pretty quickly anyway, so try and go for the ones in the 7000 range so you can keep hunting optimally for longer.

I have been wondering, though this may be a question for the Mictlan/Blood Magic guide, how big is the difference when blood hunting in 5k+ population vs provinces that are only a dozen or so people short of 5k?

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

I'm not sure but it might've been linear relationship.

So, 5% failure chance for every 250 pop below 5000.

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

population/5000 *100 is the percentage chance of one check that is done. Another is for unrest/200 *100, and another is for the level of your blood magic *40 /100.

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

Thanks for the info guys. One of my problems is losing population with the Death-3 scale. Is there a spell that can help increase population in provinces? I thought maybe Gift of Health, but the description for that spell doesn't mention increasing population growth.

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

nope, nothing. Growth and lucky events are it

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

You could Wish for population. But wishing for slaves is more simple...

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

The best way to deal with your Death-3 dominion is to expand aggressively to keep your gold flow up, and also switch from troops to summons (no upkeep) since gem income doesn't decay with Death[1].

-Max

[1] I personally never take Death scales, for thematic and fun reasons, but I'm told it's quite popular in MP because the benefits are front-loaded toward the early game.

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

If your empire stalls in expansion, Death dominion can be a serious problem. I do however like its reliability, and you know what you have to work with. In contrast, misfortune has caused me problems every game I've played which could potentially have proved lethal.

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

Thanks for the info guys :) I guess I might try altering Baalz's configuration for the next game, and see how it goes. Offset getting rid of Death-3 by losing Magic-1 and going with Order-1 instead of Order-3. Or perhaps cutting back Death Magic 5 to 4. Hmmm... well, that's for next game :)

More questions...

Since the manual doesn't list the exact percentages, I'm wondering if the Unrest reduced by Fata Morgana will offset the Unrest produced by Illwinter in my provinces? Also, does the Cold produced by Illwinter affect non-cold resistant units during battle? I don't see any penalties currently for non-cold resistant units fighting in a Cold-x province.

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

Yeah, I find growth scale and luck scales both tend to make people have strong opinions on them. Those opinions just vary. :)

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

I am trying this Strat with Vanilla Dom3. I'm having an issue with the SCs turning into wolves at the end of combat and losing all their gear accept the 2 misc slots. Does CBM fix that issue or is this a new bug?

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

It's not a bug, it's working exactly as it's supposed to. You're not supposed to give them anything but misc equipment.

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

That only happens when you change shape IN the battle.
If you change into a werewolf before the battle it stays a werewolf after.

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

IIRC the Skratti has three forms: Skratti, Jotun werewolf and Jotun Wolf. If the Jotun werewolf form gets whacked, it changes to the Jotun Wolf and consequently drops all but misc. gear. If the jotun Wolf gets killed, it dies. If it survives, it should revert to the Skratti form.

The reason for this is that sometimes involuntary shapechange in battle triggers another shapechange command after battle and in the case of the skratti, because there are three forms, it does not work as things do with units that only have two forms.

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

My test game shows Fantomen is correct, which is not the same as saying Edi is wrong.

If you change into the werewolf form in the strategic map and enter combat, your skratti will remain in that form during and after the battle.

If you change into werewolf form as a scripted (or I assume unscripted) part of your orders during the battle then at the end of the battle you will become a wolf.

I don't know what happens if you are killed. That's a bit tougher to test and Edi may well be correct as well.

What happens is folks want to enter combat in mage form to have access to that extra level of water or whatever. Then they script the change to werewolf form and get a rude shock when they start their next turn and the wolf has decided it wasn't that interested in all that shiny gear.

Big Jotun Oops.

My understanding is that this is a feature, not a bug.

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

Admittedly, I have not tested that, but went from memory of how I've seen shapechange work previously. Basically battlefied shapechange causes the unit to want to revert back to the form it had when it entered battle. Wit things like Jaguar Warriors or Black Sorcerers, the shapechange is always involuntary and the return to the original shape is through the #firstshape mechanic.

For units with full shapechange, the shapechange command is triggered. In most cases, such as the dragons, it simply switches the form back and forth. With the Jotun Skratti, it cycles into the next form and drops the gear. In that case it would need to cycle twice or skip over one form with some kind of offset factor, which does not exist in Dominions 3.

Therefore it's a feature, not a bug.

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

Looks like a skratti in any form that is killed in combat does not revert to another form, but dies.

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

I also had the issue happen while being in human form, then turning into a werewolf from taking damage. When the next turn started, I would notice the Skratti was in dog form and the human basic leader with him ended up finding 1 of the Skratti's lost axes.

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

Outside of battle, a shape-changer to the fewer-items shape retains the items in the other slots, to reappear in the more-items shape, right?

What I don't get is: where are those items actually kept? I think someone might have said there may be hidden "retainers" who hold the items...

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

Jon, those items disappear. Unless there is a lab, then they might get placed into the storage.

There is no hidden retainer.

You can get your own hidden retainer by using scouts.

Regarding skrattir this is what I remember:
Changing before battle. No changes of shape during battle.
Changing during battle, the shape moves one shape after battle wolf -> giant, werewolf -> wolf, etc.

I think, not sure, that a giant skrattir that is killed transforms into a werewolf, and becomes a wolf after battle. Not 100% sure on this one. but this should be easy to test.