Niefelheim Strategy for the Early Era

[thejeff]

If you're not going to use Neifel Jarls for melee, I probably wouldn't even buy them.

Honestly I wouldn't even buy them to use as melee army commanders. With the right bless and a few items, they make SCs. Short of that I wouldn't use them.
Regular Godes should be able to handle the leading and blessing job and are much cheaper.

[Gandalf Parker]

I liked most of your choices. I think that the problem many have with it is that you are playing Neifelheim the way I liked to play it. As strong defense over time. Others tend to prefer swarm and rush short-term tactics.

But I have found giants really difficult to create armies out of. You might shift thinking to using more independents, with giants as support units. Have you taken the provinces that connect to your castle? What kinds of independents can you make?

[Endoperez]

The shapeshifting Skrattis are a new addition to Dom3. They didn't change forms earlier. Any way, I think the Wolf form is stealthy, unlike the other forms.

As others have said, they make good Super-Combatants (SCs). That is, if you give them magical items and script them to cast spells that enchance their battle prowess, the afflictions become much more rare, and if you stack the oddss high enough, they can eventually wipe out whole armies. As an example, forge them an Ice Sword, or Sword of Quickness, and perhaps better armor. Look out for the armor's encumberance value, though. Quickness it also very good; Personal Quickness is Alteration 3.

Earth bless gives reinvigoration, which lowers fatique. Fatique hurts even before your giants fall unconscious. See page 76 of the manual. The example is nice.

[Felgar]

Endoperez said:
The shapeshifting Skrattis are a new addition to Dom3.

and perhaps better armor.

Isn't it the armor they wear that allows them to shapeshift? I'll have to test it and see if new armor takes away their ability to shift forms.

[thejeff]

My thought was more to use the Neifels as troops with the full blessing. Godes would bless them and cast spells staying out of the fight, so the lesser hp and regen wouldn't be a drawback.

Since the Godes are much cheaper, you could field more Neifels for the same cost and rough effectiveness.

Essentially it seems a waste of Neifel Jarls to be fighting on the line, and they're not that effective as artillery until you're fairly high up in research. Skratti may still be more effective for that.

In dom2 at least, I'd happily send a Jarl out solo against any indies other than Knights or Heavy Cavalry, even at Indies 9. With a good bless, Luck Pendant, maybe horror Helm? Cast Quickness, Breath of Winter.
Haven't done much with them in Dom3.

[Endoperez]

Felgar said:

Isn't it the armor they wear that allows them to shapeshift? I'll have to test it and see if new armor takes away their ability to shift forms.

First, I haven't tested it but other shape-shifting creatures don't have limits with what armor they can wear. They might lose the armor they have when they change shape, but they won't lose their ability to change just from wearing strange armor. Furthermore, I think it'd have been easier to just have Skrattis not have a body slot than to program a new mechanic that'd be used just for them.


Also, my message had an annoying typo. While I hope Skrattis can make good SCs, I meant Niefel Jarls in my post. They are much tougher, have much better starting equipment, more resistances, and have better magics. Death and Blood are both quite weak in the buff spell department, but Blood Vengeance is harder to get than Soul Vortex.

[alexti]

To Felgar: you're losing Niefel Jarls because you don't have earth bless. After casting quickness and blessing you get around 30 fatigue which gives you -3 defense and as jarls attack it quickly gets worse. Even though they don't fall unconcious they're getting hit so often that you need high regeneration just to survive (and of course, it causes you moral difficulties). With Earth bless you manage your fatigue on somewhat acceptable level which means you maintain good defense and don't get hit often.

So essentially, that's lack of earth bless that causes you to go in massive armies instead of being able to send your jarls alone.

Hey all,
Good to see so many old faces still around. I have been unable to recover my old identity, hope there is np with starting a new one.


Alexti is right, fatigue is a killer for SCs, particularly when quickened.

The worst part is not the penalty to defense, but the fact that it allows for armour piercing hits (IIRC from Dom:PPP & Dom2).
30 fatigue means opponents hitting through your defense have a 30% chance of scoring an armour piercing hit...thus why the Earth bless is even more important for Niefels than the Nature one: better not suffering any damage from mundane troops than trusting your regen to make up for it.

Besides, Niefels cannot trust any longer Breath of Winter to do the killing for them, so battles take longer, and that means still more fatigue.

[Felgar]

I'm well into my game now (year 11) and am far ahead of most other nations. There are two very powerful opponents with about 50-60 provinces like me, the rest have about 20-40 provinces and can't field large enough armies to threaten my 25 troop armies.

But I do use a lot of independent troops to augment my militia defenses. Without a ranged troop type (they used to have boulder throwers) giant militia defense is a pushover, so I try and assign 40-60 archers or other ranged troops on patrol in all my border provinces.

Combined with defenses in the 60-100 range I’m able to hold off most attacks while I finish taking out all the neutrals within my borders. Once I’ve done that I’ll switch to offense and see if the late game magic spells spell doom for my Niefels.

[Felgar]

It's all about the regeneration. The smaller giants just don't have enough hit points to make the 20% regeneration that big of a deal for them. But the Niefel Jarl's have 60+ hit points, so get something like 15 or 16 points a turn in regeneration. That makes a huge difference in their survivability.

But you’re right if you're going with less than 10 nature picks then the huge Niefels (commanders or troops) aren't worth it really. This strategy focuses on the hit point regeneration and only works for the large Niefels.