Niefelheim Strategy for the Early Era

[Felgar]

Yeah, eventually you have to rotate your armies’ home and bring fresh blood into the mix. Since my god is fixed in place, I’ve created an old guard corps for him consisting solely of old veteran troops that have accumulated many afflictions.

I’ve got 5 on guard and about 15 on hold and attack currently, but the corps is slowly growing. Eventually I’ll cast Faery Court and Gift of health to try and heal them but for now they serve Lord Slab in his personal guard.

My wounded Jarl’s are all heroic leaders (one has 337 personal kills) so they sit at home with Lord Slab and do research awaiting the healing spells.

Overall though I’ve only lost perhaps less than 10 giants and maybe 1 or 2 Jarl’s. I’ve taken well over 60 provinces now and have fought three major wars with huge (50+ provinces) opponents and held firm on all fronts.

Magic is becoming more potent now however, so I’m waiting to see if they can hold up in the end game or not.

Basically the 14 hit points a turn regen makes each little giant a mini SC.

[KissBlade]

You can teleport monoliths to wreck provinces if they have the appropriate buff spells. With astral 4, you get body ethereal, luck, shield and f4 gives you fire shield.

[Gandalf Parker]

Sheesh people. How about a rule that you have to say something nice before saying something nasty? He got some things right. Its a nice effort.

Felgar. All of these are opinions. The game is big enough for everyone to come up with their own strategies (and no one to come up with the perfect killer one).

Your plan looks 90% in line with how I would have gone. Nicely done. One thing Id mention is that during those first few turns when you are building up, you can put your armies on patrol and turn your taxes to the max. Be sure and turn it back down when you leave with them though.

Gandalf Parker

[Shovah32]

I would make some skinshifters, give them a cheap commander and sendthem after the weaker (militia ect) provinces to give you a gold boost. I agree that some earth fitted into the bless somehow would be a great help but your bless is fine as it is. As said you could easily expand with far less than that and, you do start up too slow. Send out armies of 1 jarl and 4 giants and that should be enough for most provinces, before that use your skinshifters, they are very powerful for their cost (and great at soaking up attacks)

[dirtywick]

As was stated I would definately try to work something out for early expansion. The more you take the bigger your income is. Even if you want to run with that strategy, you can cut the wait time down significantly.

[alexti]

That's strategy looks like a real overkill. I've tried Niefels with one of the human pretenders, imprisoned N6E4S3 or something like that. Dominion 5 or 6, Order+3,Cold+3,Sloth+1,Growth+1,Luck-2,Magic+1. Those Niefel Jarls is a real power from early on. With nature (regeneration is more to prevent afflictions than anything else) and earth (reinvigoration) blessing and with quicken oneself (alt-2) they can handle most of indies (and early AI army) alone. So I bought few Gigjas and Skrattis, went for Alt-2 while my starting army went to conquer indies from turn 2 (with scout who became prophet). In a 5-6 turns I had enough income to recruit Niefel Jarl per turn, Alt-2 was researched by that time, so they just went conquering everything around. Further research targets are Con-4 and Alt-6 - Niefel Jarls don't need any extras to deal with low-end armies, but when facing more advanced (and larger) armies they need soul vortex and few cheap items. Nothing AI can do against that. It will probably work as initial expansion plan in MP, might be a decent plan in blitz as well. If you attack your neighbour with 5 jarls (one per province) many nations will have problems defeating more than one jarl per turn so early in the game, which means they'll quickly lose their territory.

[Twan]

IMO having a bless other than nature is not really needed, as well as the berserking ability (are niefels with 14 morale + bless + sermon + very rare losses, really routing often ?).

So this kind of strategy would work well with an awake green dragon, order 3, production 1, cold 3, misfortune 2, nature 8, dom 6, and this kind of pretender allow you to take 10-20 provinces instead of staling the first turns (and spread more your dominion since the beginning, so the dom 6 is not as weak as on an imprisoned one). Of course, it's at a price : no fire magic and no akashic record but the first isn't really hard to find on indie mages (and you just need fire 1 for some rings) and the second is not especially needed for a strategy based on brute force.

Also you can make big economies by using some Jotun Godes instead of Niefel Jarls (say for a 5 squads army 3 godes casting blessx2 and sermon and 2 well equiped jarls casting blessx2 then attacking).

[Humer]

My Niefels are merrily frolicking the fields w/ F4E4S4N6, courtesy of the Monolith. Order-3 is a must, as is at least Growth-1. No drain. You are already behind in research.

My thoughts on the blessing:
- Most things that a Niefel (or even a Jotun) hit, die so why not make them hit a little better; I'll also be fielding fewer troops than my opponents -> F4 for +2 att.
- Since I'm fielding fewer troops, my troops must make more hits to get rid of enemy troops; also my Jarls need to buff and NOT get hit while too much fatigued -> E4 for reinvigoration +2.
- Magic Resistance: Goooood for Jarls -> S4
- To drive the affliction chance down and 10% regeneration -> N6

This means that sacred leaders other than Jarls under this bless are very effective and early expansion NOT using Jarls is (read: should be) very effective. After a few indies, many your leaders should be in HoF. Jarls, after Quicken Self and Blessing, are able to singlehandedly take on indies (watch out for heavy cavalry). Keep recruiting the sacred leaders and use them as mini-thugs. Hand out Amulets of Luck, if pearls can be spared.

Start bloodhunting now - Skrattis. Your research will suffer for it but bloodsummons are easy way to fill the giants' ranks with size-2 chaff - Jotuns are size-4, that means a human-sized thing can occupy same grid with a Jotun. Recruit infantry from indies for this purpose also. Blood also gives you access to Boots of Youth for your Gygjas (and Sages), although a well-placed Thistle Mace should accomplish same thing.

Prophetize your first scout and use her to spread your dominion, which also spreads cold scale.

And your pretender can forge a plethora of VERY useful things.

I haven't yet tried skratti's second form for thug chassis, so anyone want to chip in on that? Quicken self, Breath of Winter at least, maybe a Shroud of Battle Saint? They have been too precious for me as my bloodhunters.

Oh, and how this cuts out in MP? I have no idea

- Humer, a dabbler