[HoneyBadger]

I like Abyssia, in Early Age. Sacred troops are very nice, and province defense is quite tough. Salamanders destroy indeps. Fire resistance is easy to counter, admittedly, so it's good to wean your Abyssians off of fire and into blood magic by mid-game. I like to use a jailed enchantress or cyclops with totally trashed scales and 9 death and either 9 fire, astral, or earth. I try to get a good stable of flying demon assasin commanders and then equip them very well. The assasins can be equipped with two blood thorns or a hellsword and shroud of sacredness, which will make them very survivable flying behind the lines. A ring of regeneration is nice if you can afford the nature magic, and an elixer of life is a good insurance policy, especially in late game. With Abyssia, you want to hit the independents hard, and get as many as possible working for you, since Abyssia is pretty much a 1 trick fire pony until you can get the higher up blood summons. The lack of archers for Abyssia is really minimal if you get a good ratio of salamanders and demonic commanders. I don't think the demon soldiers are worth investing in though, except as a good screen for your flying commanders. Even then, they're a waste, in my opinion, atleast after the first few years. All told, Abyssia isn't that great in multi-player if you play it straight, nation against nation, but you have an excellent capacity for getting around that by knocking out independents and holding onto them. Much better, in my opinion, than Niefelheim, with less weaknesses.