[Graeme Dice]

Boron said:
Whats so amazing about Abysian national troops ?
They are high protection but resourcewise extremely expensive.

Fire immune, superhuman stats, high MR, high morale, heat radiation. They have morningstars which are the best general purpose weapon available. They can also easily afford productivity 3 to make large numbers of troops.

With a Fire 9 Bless i personally consider mictlans troops even superior.

You shouldn't. Fire-9 blessed lava warriors will eat fire-9 blessed Mictlan troops for breakfast. A simple simulation shows that they win 99% of the time.

Imo any other bloodnation ( jotunheim , ulm , pangenea , marignon , vanheim ) has better troops than Abysia.

Jotunheim and Abysia have equal quality troops. The heat radiation and superior numbers mean that they can survive quite well. Ulmish troops are definetly inferior. They have fewer stats, less MR, aren't fire immune, and don't radiate heat. Abysian troops will win even at half the numbers. Marignon troops also suffer from the same problems dealing with Abysian troops. Einheres are also about the same as Abysian troops, and only a very expensive blessing will make Van's and Valkyries equal to Abysian troops when you spend the same amount of gold on them.

To add pain most of Abysia's troops have only stratmove 1.

Which doesn't matter when you are invading someone else.

Most of Abysia's heavy inf costs 20 gold / 30 resources.

And most of Jotunheim's cost 30 gold and 38 resources. Both require productivity to make sufficient numbers.

Marignon DF can build lots of x-bows which are useful later too by flaming arrows.

Sure they can, but those flaming arrows don't do anything to abysian troops.

With jotunheim i don't need to say a single word .

Actually, you definetly do need to explain this, since any experience would show you that giants and Abysian infantry are ramarkably evenly matched.

Vanheim is not really cheaper but Vans are really good and skinshifters/huskarls etc. can be useful too.

For the same cost, without an enormous blessing, abysian troops will defeat Van troops.

Mictlan can use a few slaves as fodder and blessed sun warriors or eagle warriors etc. do the job .

Mictlan's troops cannot stand up to Abysia's. They will end up on fire, and don't have weapons that can penetrate a protection of 18 with any regularity.

If you play abysia do you play them with a cheap castle or an expensive one?

The only two nations that doesn't get a castle by default is Mictlan and R'lyeh. From there I decide whether I want a wizard's tower for nations like Pythium, or a hill fortress for nations like Miasma C'Tis.

With something like a watchtower you won't get more than 3 HI / turn resourcewise. I personally have really not found a way how to use Abysian troops in large enough numbers that they are good.

Well, first off, you don't use a watchtower, you use a castle and productivity 3. You alchemize your fire gems early to keep your troop production high.

They have rather low morale unfortunately so routing is really always for me a problem with them.

They have a morale of 11 and have access to holy 4 priests. There's no morale problem there.

Btw : Does flaming arrows work with slingers etc. too ? that they hurl flaming stones ?

Yes, it works with all missile weapons.