yeah, the very difficult research really sets things out of whack. that's why on IRC we call the game "Retarded", which seems quite literally accurate.
Scales are horrible, but not unmanageable given the rich setting of the game. The trick w/ Jot bless strategies, IMO, is exactly what is held out as the "marginal" nature of Jotun woodsmen: their low armor.
Because of their crap armor, their resource cost is minimal. I can get by w/ sloth-3 for the Jots when doing a heavy bless strat. that goes a long way towards paying for the bless effects.
OTOH, my pretender is pretty useless
a c'tis water 9 serpent dancer w/ poison slinger strat would do fairly well against W9F9 jots. but base c'tis troops would seem to be very weak against such monstrosities.
You could always try negotiation
I know I currently have little desire for a war over there. As well, the territories in question are getting fairly close to my capital, so perhaps pushing that direction of advance is not in your best interest...
[ April 27, 2004, 07:31: Message edited by: archaeolept ]