Advice for Abysia against Niefelheim
 

Just by chance, I've spent almost my entire Dominions-MP time lately fighting against Dr Praetorius' N9E9 Niefel giants - in one game as Sauromatia, and in another as Abysia.

I must say I hate the wretched things (no offence Dr Praetorius, you're playing very well with them). They really narrow the range of strategies you can use, because you simply can't beat them in a fair fight even if you outnumber them a hundred to one. They just keep regenerating (N9 bless), they don't get tired (E9), and simply won't die. I did eventually beat him in the Sauromatia game, but only using cheaty tactics of my own - lots of undead in the Dark, with Fog Warriors, and even then the battle was ridiculously close to a complete stalemate.

So, in the Abysia game, I have every advantage. I have lots of provinces, decent research (for turn 20-odd), heaps of money, lots of fire gems, quite a few mages and decent resources. Niefelheim is much smaller at the moment, although he is now expanding quickly.

So, given the fact that I can build almost any army I like pretty quickly, does anyone have any suggestions as to how to take on the giants? His army is about 40 giants and jarls. The tactic I just tried was a huge army of salamanders, 100-odd, with an array of mages casting Prison of Fire. It was fairly effective, his giants couldn't do damage that fast, and a lot of them nearly died from the heat - but then all the salamanders and mages got tired, and he wiped them out. Total giant casualties - two.

Any ideas, anyone? It must be possible to beat them somehow.

Thanks!

llamabeast

Re: Advice for Abysia against Niefelheim
 

The fire spell Blindness should work nicely.

Re: Advice for Abysia against Niefelheim
 

Well the trouble is their MR is so high that by the time a significant number of them were blind, I'd be dead. I think the probability of it working is maybe 14%? So blinding 40 giants would take a very long time.

Re: Advice for Abysia against Niefelheim
 

Abysia can make penetration items, and Blindness needs only 1 fire to cast, but you would need lots of mages for it to work. Lots of mages casting Incinerate might work too, together with lots of heavy infantry with battleaxes. Lots lots. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

If you are using blood magic it has spells that would be effective, though they are high research.

Re: Advice for Abysia against Niefelheim
 

Did you try burning them to the ground, with packs of Anathemants and Anointeds casting Fire Clouds, Falling Fires, Fireballs and so on ?
That with a solid Abysian inf screen could be effective, the Abysians don"t take damage from stray fireballs. As you're playing EA the Burning ones are very tough and hit hard enough to kill giants I think - but they're sooo costly they need some bless strategy to be worth their cost IMHO.

Re: Advice for Abysia against Niefelheim
 

As a hard core Niefelheim player I can tell you what hurts the most. Being hit in the pocket book. Don't try to fight him head to head. Use small armies to take his provinces, don't bother to defend them too well. As soon as he splits up his army try to hit one of his smaller armies with 2 or 3 of yours. Heavy on the fire magic, have you expensive mages retreat after casting the fire spells and wear them down. And above all else make shure he doesn't have 'Gift of Health' active. If he does then you are screwed. Extra giant HP and removal of afflictions will make his armies almost unstoppable.

Sammual

Re: Advice for Abysia against Niefelheim
 

Well the thing is with 40 giants, each of which regenerates 15hp every turn, it's very hard to damage them fast enough. I suspect that even twenty mages casting steadily would just spread their damage too thinly to kill them quickly. Also Burning Ones almost invariably die in one hit from the giants, so it's impossible to hold them off for any length of time. I've also never seen them kill a giant, although my bless is very weak (Fire 4).

As for the blindness - sadly I haven't got any construction research yet, so can't make any Eyes of the Void. And if he once throws up Antimagic I'm stuffed, although to be fair he has no research at all yet. Maybe I'll do a test game and give it a go.

The reason I'm a bit unsure about using MR spells is that in the Sauromatia game, I had 22 soul slays cast a turn for several turns, each using Eyes of the Void and Spell Focuses, and they killed maybe 4 or 5 giants. He did have Antimagic though.

Aargh! I hate giants!

One thing I think I did wrong with the salamanders was attack in a Cold-1 province, rather than a Heat-3 province. Would that make a lot of difference to the amount of damage the salamanders would do, and how quickly they get tired?

Re: Advice for Abysia against Niefelheim
 

Don't try to take them in one battle. They have the advantage in large battles. Use a few short battles to weaken them first. The giants will take battle afflictions and over time will take starvation afflictions as well. Hit and run fights don't let them use the chill, rejuve, or regen to any effect.

Sammual

Re: Advice for Abysia against Niefelheim
 

As said raiding will help. Combine that with a large number of battle-axe abysian infantry and as many fire mages as possible(if you can research up to pillar of fire that could be a big help) to burn his giants to death. High strength battleaxes are great for damaging the giants a bit and massed fire spells(falling fires and pillar of fire preferably) can do a large amount of damage to them. Another option would be taking a fire9, high dom, high prod pretender and using burning ones who, while not being very resistant to giants attacks can do great damage with high attack, high strength, flaming morning stars.

Re: Advice for Abysia against Niefelheim
 

I think Incinerate is the best fire damage spell against the giants, better even than Pillar of Fire, maybe. Armor negating instead of armor piercing like all other fire spells, high damage, precision 100.

Falling fires and other area of effect spells will do much less damage to a single giant, and they regerate so fast.

Soul Slay is S3, Blindness is F1, so penetration will be much better.

Re: Advice for Abysia against Niefelheim
 

Anointed of Rhuax casting blindness, even without items, should have pretty good penetration(and them casting incinerate/pillar of fire would have great damage)

Re: Advice for Abysia against Niefelheim
 

Sammual is correct... destroy his gold income.

Re: Advice for Abysia against Niefelheim
 

Can you build some thugs or SC. A few heartfinderswords and eyesheilds might work nicely...

Re: Advice for Abysia against Niefelheim
 

Thanks guys, lots of good ideas here. I've been doing some tests, and some of these strategies seem pretty effective - I won't comment which yet, because you never know who's reading! I'll get back with results when the time comes, if it does - there may be some hope of peace after all.

If anyone else has ideas please still say! Thanks!

llamabeast

Re: Advice for Abysia against Niefelheim
 

Also, if you take a fire9 pretender your pillars of fire from him should be able to insta-kill(or almost) even niefel giants(they are 34+ ap damage and only require f2, im not sure how to work out the final damage but its alot)

Re: Advice for Abysia against Niefelheim
 

We can hardly give you good strategic advice if you don't tell us what you're planning, can we?

FWIW, I recommend that you send him all your gold and gems, and beg for mercy!

What you really need to do is boost your earth magic a bit - give your spellcasters earth gems if need be - and take my armor off with a destruction (or similar armor rusting spell.)

If you can do that, my giants are pretty much toast. Regen on non-armored units is fairly easy to overcome. Of course, this trick also works real well against you, but I don't have any earth mages yet.

Re: Advice for Abysia against Niefelheim
 

Or he could just use fire spells that ignore or atleast halve armour...

Re: Advice for Abysia against Niefelheim
 

Well, sure, that works to an extent. But the fact is - he can't have more than 20 fireballers and each fireball only hits one giant. Unless and until he gets to science fiction levels (Pillar of Fire? At this stage of the game?) he doesn't get that far against my giants - and at that stage, I spread them out a whole lot and freeze the entire battlefield myself, it's not like I'm sitting there in the fetal position waiting to be kicked around.

OTOH, Destruction is only alteration 4 - and even using an armor piercing spell like Immolation (also in alteration), you'd way rather be up against a prot of <10 than a prot of >20! Of course, that's just the thing *I* did to beat niefelheim in this situation, I wouldn't recommend for other people to do it. In fact, if other people do it, that would be morally wrong, you should come up with your own tactics.

What's funny is that I'd resolved to be a little less agressive this game - and I was attacked first on turn 8 (I have no idea what marverni was thinking) and then again on turn 20 or so (by Abyssia, which would've made sense if Marverni had killed my stuff instead of just inconvenienging the hell out of me). This has not turned out to be the peaceful, relaxing early game I had anticipated.

Re: Advice for Abysia against Niefelheim
 

If he had earth magic, which he barely does, destruction would be a good choice. As it is, IMO sticking to things that ignore armor - Incinerate and/or Blindness, will work far better.

Re: Advice for Abysia against Niefelheim
 

Pillar of fire is a level 8 spell, so you won't be seeing it till around turn 40 at the earliest, which is virtually the end of most games.

Re: Advice for Abysia against Niefelheim
 

What about Demonbred assassins with annoying items to try to pick off his leadership? I don't know, fire bolas, poison weapons + medallions of vengeance, maybe a black bow of botulf to at least feeblemind his blessers, or perhaps equip your assassins with slave collars and hope his prophet grabs it by accident. While he can take lots of ablative commanders to try to thin out your percentages on assassination, you can probably wipe out those guys with battlefield spells in your hit and run attacks.

Re: Advice for Abysia against Niefelheim
 

I can't think of too many cost-effective ways to assassinate Niefel Jarls with Demonbred assasins or slayers.

Re: Advice for Abysia against Niefelheim
 

Well, I listed two of them above - you only have to hit with a black bow for auto feeblemind, and you can always gamble on the slave collar pickup, neither of which are expensive. He also said he's got heaps of money so he can try pretty much anything, so my impression was that it was less about cost effectiveness and more about getting the job done. It just depends on what indeps he's been able to pick up.

Re: Advice for Abysia against Niefelheim
 

Demonbred assasins with cursing/affliction causing/diseasing weapons could be damaging to jarls that are equipped but i dont see them being too cost effective gem-wise(although boots of quickness, robe of shadows and 2 high damage AP/AN weapons might work)

edit: alephs idea of putting a load of cursed items on the demonbreds should also work(are cursed items automatically picked up? i forget. If so i hope it dosnt also count for magic hearts http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/eek.gif)

Re: Advice for Abysia against Niefelheim
 

Yes, I'm not sure about the salamanders, but the heat/cold of a province makes a pretty significant difference on the durability of the giants (ice devils as well, FWIW). If my memory is correct there is a +/- 1 to both natural armor and defense (as well as strength) per temperature shift, which can make a sizable difference if you’re hitting for 20 (minus) 18, or 20 (minus) 12. The defense difference doesn’t impact the salamanders, but it does help the survivability against whatever else you’ve got and a difference of +/- 3 again, isn’t trivial. I know when I play Niefelheim one of my top priorities is to research to wolven winter so I can control the temperature for any big battles. I don’t remember, is there a heat counterpart to wolven winter? If so, that would definitely be something to look into.

At any rate, the heat scale definitely effects the amount of heat that your salamanders radiate even if it doesn’t directly effect the encumbrance of the giants. At some point it should be able to overcome the earth bless reinvigoration (maybe cast that internal furnace spell that increases your heat radiation?). Hmmmm, I’m not sure how the cold/heat aura’s interact with each other, but it seems like those salamanders radiate a fair amount and you can fit more of them into each square. Just a thought.

Re: Advice for Abysia against Niefelheim
 

Actually, it's the *action point* bonus that really hurt him that battle. My giants practically teleported across the battlefield - in a hot province they're much slower.

Clearly, I'd have to be a complete fool to simply march on his capital. I'm going to make some quick gains while he reinforces (and yes I have scouts), fortify a new border, and then start freezing provinces remotely before battles start.

Re: Advice for Abysia against Niefelheim
 

You can't count in assasins. as cool as they are they are meant more to kill researchers than commanders. He just have to bring basic 30g commanders and your assasin's turn is wasted and his army moved away from him.
Altough it would be nice to kill his priests. Unless he has some tough prophet or something for divine blessing instead of the common blessing.

How about lizardmen shaman casting curse to the giants.

Indy archers plus fire arrows.

Raiding devils.

Devils on hold and attack large enemy monsters (if the
commanders are bigger than the common giants this can be a sort of assasination).

Body etereal on vanguard?

dunno.

Re: Advice for Abysia against Niefelheim
 

Heh, yeah, pretty much all strategy is easier said than done against an opponent who is on the ball, but its good to know if you can force your opponent into a disadvantageous situation. I think the Abyssian dominion pushes heat the same way the Niefelheim does cold, so your strategy of fortifying and freezing him out should be applicable in reverse. Thaw those giants out! I'm guessing that those dual blessed giants have probably led to a low dominion score any chance of dominion push? Get a couple of blood sacrificers near the border and pair it with aggressive demon-bred raiding in his back country and the heat will really cut into the income necessary to crank out those expensive giants (I think heat-3 will give -30% income for Niefelheim). Give a "warm welcome" to the giants who try to come in and squash your temples, stay in the high heat dominion and play with the home-field advantage.

Re: Advice for Abysia against Niefelheim
 

Those are some great ideas, Manuk. You could even combine them and have ethereal devils as your vanguard http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

I know Aby cant cast it but my #1 spell vs big targets is always Gifts from Heaven. Blasts big creatures to bits in a single hit.

Isnt there a blood spell that diseases an army? Rain of Toads, I think? Now, that is pretty useless vs a normal dom3 300 unit horde. But if all you are facing is a 40 unit army? Then it starts to make a difference.

The suggestion of an SC is a good one, too. Its not that hard to get an SC with truly heroic defense (25+). Which, against giants should be pretty good, given that you cant be mobbed in the traditional sense. Heart finding swords is also and excellent suggestion. In fact, if the giants dont have magic weapons (i dont think they do?) you could make an SC with a heart finder sword, etherealness, lucky, and piles of defense (dont bother with Prot, you will die in one hit anyway) and he would probably kick the hell out of a large number of giants.

Re: Advice for Abysia against Niefelheim
 

Actually, due to their huge health disease isnt effective against other elite units(vans ect). If your going to raid him and manage to find a death mage somewhere QM taught me a very nice strat: Hire a few demonbred slayers, forge them rods of the leper kings and then summon fiends of darkness. Each rod equipped demonbred can lead 40 and the entire group has both stealth and flying.

Re: Advice for Abysia against Niefelheim
 

disease its not bad but i don't know how many of them would be affected.

Re: Advice for Abysia against Niefelheim
 

I'm not sure the action points are that important - if both sides have melee armies, when they meet each other doesn't really matter.

The big problem as I see it is the cold aura. Most armies have about two hits at the giants - enough to injure them significantly if you have good men - then the army falls asleep in the cold, and the giants mop up with no casualties. Of course their extra armour and defence make a big difference too.

In my test games, Abysia beats Niefelheim trivially in a hot province, and almost can't win in the cold. But I think it's likely Niefelheim will have Wolven Winter (trying to estimate from the score graphs) and given that he'll probably be able to guess where any important battles are, how can I possibly beat him? I wish there was some kind of counter to wolven winter, but there isn't as far as I can tell, and so no matter how good my dominion is, for only 10 water gems he can turn the heat-3 province where a battle will occur to cold-3, dooming my poor soldiers.

If he hasn't got Wolven Winter he's stuffed. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Advice for Abysia against Niefelheim
 

The giants do not regen during the magic casting rounds. So that means a *vast* numbers of Flames from Afar ( if you have space age research then Flames from the Sky ) should toast the giants. For 40 giants I *think* it would take something like 25 Falmes from Afar to kill them all. That is 250 gems so it is mroe than likely not worth it.

In combat Rods of the Phoenix, and lots of them, will do the trick, but you probably don't have the tech, nor do you have the gems, nor do you have the screening troops.

Othen that those insanely costly ideas I think that if you are fighting in cold provinces you are going to get smoked, uhm frozen, uhm whatever.

Re: Advice for Abysia against Niefelheim
 

Again, in the easier said than done category, is the fact that you know this and can use it to your advantage. If you've got an overall pretty high heat countryside that he has the ability to pinpoint some cold into go geurilla on him. If he can only effectively fight in one province at a time (which rapidly heats back up the turn after he freezes it) hit 3 or 4 provinces for each one of yours he muscles into. Also, if you have a good gem/research lead look at some of the dome spells to protect your provinces. Does anybody know the fire damage done if you hit the dome of fire with a spell? It may be enough to discourage the casting of wolven winter where it's expected (or it might not be enough to phase the giant casters, dunno). I think maybe the dome of fire doesn't actually stop the effect though so maybe look into a different one (astral, blood?). Imagine the surprise of moving his main force in, expecting wolven winter to have gone off but instead being met by a stout defense in a warm climate...

Re: Advice for Abysia against Niefelheim
 

stellar cascades, in combat, will make the giants nicely tired since they dont reinvigorate more than their enc.

Re: Advice for Abysia against Niefelheim
 

Once again everyone, many thanks for all the advice, I'm thinking about it all carefully. Much appreciated!