Counters to Niefelheim

[Zylithan]

Thanks for your advice.

I'll read up on the spells you mention. My guess is many are astral and many are single target? So I'd need a lot of astral mages? I still need chaff to slow the giants from getting to my mages I imagine. Dominion was neutral or warm, I didn't have anything beyond fire 1 (except on my pretender, who was far away, but had fire 6 after multiple items buffing him). I had tried using "Fire from afar" with my pretender, but that would usually weakly injure a few units, and kill none according to my opponent. My Oreliads had lots of air magic, but I had trobule using them. As a tangent - what is "Breath of Dragon" spell supposed to do? It seems like my wizards always cast it (even if I script something else) and I have never seen it do any damage to any troop.

For units, I thought having the bigger arco units (aside from myrmidons, which I couldnt resource afford because my cap had only 2 wasteland neighbors, one ruled by Bogus) wouldn't help because of the giants' size.

[Zylithan]

thanks perfectionist.. hadn't seen your comments when I posted. I'll look into those spells also. I'm not sure their exact bless, but I know earth and nature are common on giants and water is just always popular so I should know how to stop that.

[thejeff]

I'm more familiar with the later Arcosephales. Wasn't it an astral nation in EA?

Try Charm as well. It's nature but short range. If you can make it work, they'll fight for you.

Air Magic? Thunderstrikes are good if you can get a lot of them. Fog Warriors might help, but not if he's got a F9 bless.

Against Neifel giants, single target one shot kill spells are what you want. They regenerate too fast to try to whittle them down.

Fires from Afar will damage a few troops. It'll kill normal humans, but the giants are too tough.

Breath of the Dragon does poison damage. It's nice, but does damage overtime and it probably canceled out by their regen.

Tougher/higher protection human units will still die in one hit so they aren't much use. Go for numbers but only as a meat shield. The mages do the killing. Massed summons can work too. Vine Ogres can make a decent wall. Living Statues or Mechanical Men if you've got the Earth magic.

[Zylithan]

Thanks for the comments all. I've been avoiding learning about communion because it sounds tricky, but that's a lame excuse. Time to learn it. I did try orb lightning a little, but perhaps throwing it harder would have worked better.

Thanks!

[Zylithan]

P.S. This community rocks. I've played other 4X type games, and I'm very impressed with the friendliness and helpfulness of the dominions community. I look forward to joining you useful folks.

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

What spells have you tried in combat?

If money is limited, but recruitment points aren't, consider mage engineers. You can also bootstrap fairly high into earth, though you'll be restricted by gems and fatigue limits.

Summon Earthpower will take you to earth two, and you can use further gems to cast as high as earth three. As many as two gems per spell, but earth three. So no fatigue 300 spells, since you can't use the minimum gems. Fortunately, a lot of earth spells are low fatigue, and you can cast some worthwhile ones without additional gems.

Earth Meld should be ignored, however, as should air's Fetters. They roll against strength and magic resistance.

That's about all I can offer at the moment, w/o a manual at hand or an online spell listing to refresh my memory.

[Micah]

Flaming arrows and indy archers will crushinate the sacred giant troops. With communion available or just a simple F2 + phoenix power + extra gem in casting it shouldn't even take much mage power. Just get some chaff to soak up the giants attacks halfway down the battlefield and watch the pain.

[thejeff]

I'm not sure Flaming Arrows is that effective against Neifel Giants, but it's worth trying if you've got the mages.

Since you've got Air mages to spare, use Wind Guide to make every arrow count. (And minimize friendly fire.)

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

I hadn't noticed the mystics had a chance at fire, along with the mage engineers.

I don't particularly recommend this for arco, I'd ruther spend gems on air elementals before I'd forge eyes of aiming on a nation with powerful air magic, but its good for some others, and you can use Wind Guide as effectively, I believe. Moreso, perhaps, because you're not wounding your mages to put it into use, and taking any attack or defense penalties.

Units with 8 to 10 precision capable of casting magma bolts will benefit greatly from an additional five precision. Most earth magic has a short range, however, and you might not be willing to move your mages so close to the front lines.

You won't get pinpoint accuracy, but bolts will be much more tightly grouped, and you'll be fearing friendly fire less.

[thejeff]

I still think the best counter to Neifel Giants is to one-shot them. Even with a good mr, at least the ones you get die. (Or get enslaved, even better.)

With their regen you're going to have to hit them at least 2-3 times in quick succession to kill with magma bolts, or lighting, or fire arrows.
Maybe falling fires or better yet, magma eruption. Decent area, good damage and leaves a heat aura behind.