Advice for Abysia against Niefelheim

llamabeast · #1 January 27th, 2007, 10:47 AM

Well the thing is with 40 giants, each of which regenerates 15hp every turn, it's very hard to damage them fast enough. I suspect that even twenty mages casting steadily would just spread their damage too thinly to kill them quickly. Also Burning Ones almost invariably die in one hit from the giants, so it's impossible to hold them off for any length of time. I've also never seen them kill a giant, although my bless is very weak (Fire 4).

As for the blindness - sadly I haven't got any construction research yet, so can't make any Eyes of the Void. And if he once throws up Antimagic I'm stuffed, although to be fair he has no research at all yet. Maybe I'll do a test game and give it a go.

The reason I'm a bit unsure about using MR spells is that in the Sauromatia game, I had 22 soul slays cast a turn for several turns, each using Eyes of the Void and Spell Focuses, and they killed maybe 4 or 5 giants. He did have Antimagic though.

Aargh! I hate giants!

One thing I think I did wrong with the salamanders was attack in a Cold-1 province, rather than a Heat-3 province. Would that make a lot of difference to the amount of damage the salamanders would do, and how quickly they get tired?

Sammual · #2 January 27th, 2007, 11:07 AM

Don't try to take them in one battle. They have the advantage in large battles. Use a few short battles to weaken them first. The giants will take battle afflictions and over time will take starvation afflictions as well. Hit and run fights don't let them use the chill, rejuve, or regen to any effect.

Sammual

Shovah32 · #3 January 27th, 2007, 12:27 PM

As said raiding will help. Combine that with a large number of battle-axe abysian infantry and as many fire mages as possible(if you can research up to pillar of fire that could be a big help) to burn his giants to death. High strength battleaxes are great for damaging the giants a bit and massed fire spells(falling fires and pillar of fire preferably) can do a large amount of damage to them. Another option would be taking a fire9, high dom, high prod pretender and using burning ones who, while not being very resistant to giants attacks can do great damage with high attack, high strength, flaming morning stars.

Teraswaerto · #4 January 27th, 2007, 01:35 PM

I think Incinerate is the best fire damage spell against the giants, better even than Pillar of Fire, maybe. Armor negating instead of armor piercing like all other fire spells, high damage, precision 100.

Falling fires and other area of effect spells will do much less damage to a single giant, and they regerate so fast.

Soul Slay is S3, Blindness is F1, so penetration will be much better.

Shovah32 · #5 January 27th, 2007, 01:36 PM

Anointed of Rhuax casting blindness, even without items, should have pretty good penetration(and them casting incinerate/pillar of fire would have great damage)

Baalz · #6 January 29th, 2007, 03:39 PM

Quote:

One thing I think I did wrong with the salamanders was attack in a Cold-1 province, rather than a Heat-3 province. Would that make a lot of difference to the amount of damage the salamanders would do, and how quickly they get tired?

Yes, I'm not sure about the salamanders, but the heat/cold of a province makes a pretty significant difference on the durability of the giants (ice devils as well, FWIW). If my memory is correct there is a +/- 1 to both natural armor and defense (as well as strength) per temperature shift, which can make a sizable difference if you�re hitting for 20 (minus) 18, or 20 (minus) 12. The defense difference doesn�t impact the salamanders, but it does help the survivability against whatever else you�ve got and a difference of +/- 3 again, isn�t trivial. I know when I play Niefelheim one of my top priorities is to research to wolven winter so I can control the temperature for any big battles. I don�t remember, is there a heat counterpart to wolven winter? If so, that would definitely be something to look into.

At any rate, the heat scale definitely effects the amount of heat that your salamanders radiate even if it doesn�t directly effect the encumbrance of the giants. At some point it should be able to overcome the earth bless reinvigoration (maybe cast that internal furnace spell that increases your heat radiation?). Hmmmm, I�m not sure how the cold/heat aura�s interact with each other, but it seems like those salamanders radiate a fair amount and you can fit more of them into each square. Just a thought.

DrPraetorious · #7 January 29th, 2007, 03:49 PM

Actually, it's the *action point* bonus that really hurt him that battle. My giants practically teleported across the battlefield - in a hot province they're much slower.

Clearly, I'd have to be a complete fool to simply march on his capital. I'm going to make some quick gains while he reinforces (and yes I have scouts), fortify a new border, and then start freezing provinces remotely before battles start.

Manuk · #8 January 29th, 2007, 04:13 PM

You can't count in assasins. as cool as they are they are meant more to kill researchers than commanders. He just have to bring basic 30g commanders and your assasin's turn is wasted and his army moved away from him.
Altough it would be nice to kill his priests. Unless he has some tough prophet or something for divine blessing instead of the common blessing.

How about lizardmen shaman casting curse to the giants.

Indy archers plus fire arrows.

Raiding devils.

Devils on hold and attack large enemy monsters (if the
commanders are bigger than the common giants this can be a sort of assasination).

Body etereal on vanguard?

dunno.

Ironhawk · #9 January 29th, 2007, 05:45 PM

Those are some great ideas, Manuk. You could even combine them and have ethereal devils as your vanguard

I know Aby cant cast it but my #1 spell vs big targets is always Gifts from Heaven. Blasts big creatures to bits in a single hit.

Isnt there a blood spell that diseases an army? Rain of Toads, I think? Now, that is pretty useless vs a normal dom3 300 unit horde. But if all you are facing is a 40 unit army? Then it starts to make a difference.

The suggestion of an SC is a good one, too. Its not that hard to get an SC with truly heroic defense (25+). Which, against giants should be pretty good, given that you cant be mobbed in the traditional sense. Heart finding swords is also and excellent suggestion. In fact, if the giants dont have magic weapons (i dont think they do?) you could make an SC with a heart finder sword, etherealness, lucky, and piles of defense (dont bother with Prot, you will die in one hit anyway) and he would probably kick the hell out of a large number of giants.

Shovah32 · #10 January 29th, 2007, 06:17 PM

Actually, due to their huge health disease isnt effective against other elite units(vans ect). If your going to raid him and manage to find a death mage somewhere QM taught me a very nice strat: Hire a few demonbred slayers, forge them rods of the leper kings and then summon fiends of darkness. Each rod equipped demonbred can lead 40 and the entire group has both stealth and flying.